In article <m+4lycBTKQyN089yn at ibm.net>, Paul Parker <parker0 at ibm.net> wrote:
>[genetic & chemical links with various disease]
>How much of an individuals behaviour is an inherited genetic
>predisposition at birth, how much is from culture - what is learnt
>after birth ?
>Links between culturally modified predispostions are being found.
>Links between genetic predispositions are being found.
>Where are we going we this ?
We should all strive to be happy little robots?
More seriously, on the flip side of the coin (from the genetic and
other factors indicated by Paul) such factors are not generally argued
to be absolute determiners of any particular effect -- merely "influences".
(E.g. it is understood from recent breast cancer studies (unless what
I read last week has been superceded this week) that factors linked
with inherited cancer only eventually affect a minority of women
that HAVE the relevant family history.)
Nor is the universe understood to be so simplistic that only a single
"influence" determines frequently influences real-world events.
(And the interactions of such influences are generally non-linear
and hence hard-to-predict in their minutae, AKA they behave "chaotically").
We'll all just have to put up with the thrashings-around of 19th C
western reductionist science while it comes to grips with some basic
facts of life ;-).
--
R. Kym Horsell
KHorsell at EE.Latrobe.EDU.AUkym at CS.Binghamton.EDUhttp://WWW.EE.LaTrobe.EDU.AU/~khorsellhttp://CS.Binghamton.EDU/~kym